Morning Report: Behind the City Budget

It can be hard to get your mind around your own personal budget, let alone the city of San Diego’s, especially since yours probably isn’t $2.75 billion.

We’ve produced several nifty charts to help you understand the mayor’s proposed budget.

They make it clear that not much has changed since the last fiscal year’s budget under Mayor Jerry Sanders, at least in the big picture: The overall amounts are the same ($2.75 billion) and size of the city’s staff, more than 10,100, remains almost identical. But there’s a hefty drop in funding to repair infrastructure like streets and sidewalks.

You can also check a pie chart that shows where the city’s money goes along with a long list of how much various departments will get.

• Perhaps the oddest expenditure is $10 million for “zoological exhibits.” Wait, are taxpayers paying for lions and tigers and bears? Yes, something like that. Check out this story from last year for details.

Culture Report: Hawks Breed, Klingons Speak and More

This week’s Culture Report links to a slew of stories about local arts and culture. Among the highlights: a panel featuring creators of imaginary sci-fi languages (like Klingon), hawk babies at the Museum of Man and a “diamond in the rough” lurking on the North County coast.

SD’s Grim History of Bombs and Explosions

In the wake of the attack in Boston, it’s worth noting that San Diego has its own grim history of bomb attacks and deadly explosions. Long-time residents may remember when the van driven by the wife of a military officer blew up in University City in 1989; the attack, which may have been a case of terrorism, remains unsolved. Decades earlier, an explosion in the waters off our city killed 65 sailors in 1905 and is memorialized to this day at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery.

For more details on these events, plus a bogus bomb scare that rattled the city in 1924, check our history flashback story.

• “San Diego County and a sheriff’s detective might be liable for using excessive force and conspiring against a deputy’s ex-girlfriend with a ‘SWAT-like’ raid of her home” thanks to a federal appeals court ruling, Courthouse News reports.

• United States University, which has a campus in Chula Vista, will pay a fine of almost $700,000 because it falsified applications for federal student grants, Courthouse News reports. A whistle-blower will get some of the fine.

• A drier-than-normal winter — like the one we had last year — can contribute to tinder-dry brush. California state firefighters are now getting extra manpower because of the increased threat, the L.A. Times reports.

• Almost a quarter-century ago, the Academy Awards show was an epic disaster, with a maniacally horrible musical number featuring “Snow White” and actor Rob Lowe.

Turns out the actress has recovered from the Academy Award mess. A San Diegan who just performed in a Coronado musical, Eileen Bowman tells the Hollywood Reporter how the debacle went down and what happened after.

Among other things, she had to sign a 13-year gag order. And she learned a lesson from the attire of the producer who set up the whole fiasco: “Never trust a man in a caftan.”